An Italian couple who have both changed sex tied the knot at Recanati, the Marche home town of Italy's great Romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi.
Newly minted man Emanuele Loati, 25, and his formerly male bride Maura Nardi, 41, told their story to Il Resto del Carlino and Radio Erre.
Maura has been blind since the age of 19 due to a retinal disease and works as a switchboard operator for a public agency.
"My colleagues, friends and co-citizens backed me in my process of transition which started in 2018," she said.
Emanuele said he had been encouraged by his then fiancée's experience and had started his own transition shortly afterwards.
News of the wedding met with acceptance and respect in the small Marche hilltown where the famed and short-lived pessimist poet and philosopher was born in 1798, before his untimely death in Naples in 1837.
"We have all greeted this decision with pleasure, and there has been no prejudice," Recanati Mayor Antonio Bravi told the Resto newspaper.
"If they decide to also celebrate their wedding in the municipal offices I will marry them with immense pleasure.
"We are a community open to all situations, a city of culture that keeps up with change".
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